State of the World Food System Special Issue: Mapping the Global Food Landscape Crisis of legitimacy and challenges for food policy

Looking into the food system through the lens of food security, the first decade of the 21st Century was a period of broken promises, distrust, as well as fear and anxiety due to multiple crises in the financial markets—in the agri-food sector and in global politics. I will argue that this economically and politically volatile environment and the widespread distrust of major international and national agencies in terms of governance has led to a global legitimacy crisis, which I consider one of the biggest obstacles in mobilizing the public for social change and policy reforms. These failures become clear when we consider past pledges that were made to address world hunger. Emerging during the mid-1970s, food security remained as a public policy priority and a popular discourse defining the conditions of food provisioning in modern society (Koç, 2013). At the World Food Summit of 1996, food security was defined as a condition that exists “when all people, at all times, have physical, and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO, 1996). As I outline below, the global community has failed to ensure food security for all. Failed promises and global distractions One of the notable developments of the 20th Century was a series of retreats from the previous global priorities set at forums such as the World Food Summit (WFS) and the Kyoto Protocol. Failure to meet established targets had significant consequences for long-term food syste